63
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 89TheWrapTim AppeloTheWrapTim AppeloThe editing is ruthlessly efficient, and some of the talking-heads scenes are dramatized via lively comic-book renditions that lend visual panache. All the characters grab you, not just the kid.
- 88Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThis winning film wins you over without manipulation, without guile and without ulterior motives. If you can’t feel good about humanity after this one, you can’t feel good.
- Miles treats this whole experience with an affectingly genuine innocence—something that the filmmakers, and many of the participants, seem to think can be bottled and sold as a soul-cleansing palliative.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleThe film is a fascinating look at how a true event can become a media event — and how courting the media can have good and bad results so mixed up that it’s hard to know where the good influence stops and the corrupting influence starts.
- 70The DissolveTasha RobinsonThe DissolveTasha RobinsonBatkid’s story is fun in part because it’s so joyously frivolous. He’s cute because he’s a tiny version of a big thing. Trying to blow him up into something bigger than he is spoils some of what makes him special.
- 60Village VoiceAmy NicholsonVillage VoiceAmy NicholsonBatkid Begins wants audiences to celebrate the everyday heroes who donated their time and energy to Miles's dream. Absolutely, we should. Still, take a minute to ask what the disproportionate investment and interest in Batkid's adventure says about our own maturity — and how the internet allows us to feel like champions for rallying for one afternoon, while overlooking the years of unglamorous doctor appointments before it.
- 60Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenLos Angeles TimesSheri LindenAs to truly exploring the phenomenon of a live-tweeted collective fiction, the documentary makes a couple of intriguing observations but doesn't look far beyond the metrics, content to exult in the wow factor of it all, which admittedly is considerable.
- 60The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisThe New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMarveling without questioning, the movie is content to package the phenomenon and coast on its feel-good wave. Yet, somewhere around the midpoint, I began to wonder who was most thrilled by all this fuss.
- 50Slant MagazineElise NakhnikianSlant MagazineElise NakhnikianAny hope of meaningful reflection or insight is doused by a steady drip of often redundant and banal observations.
- Scott’s story is inspiring, as is the way everyone pitches in, from the police to the San Francisco Giants to Hollywood special effects geniuses to President Obama. But as a movie, this is like watching an expanded local news segment.